The return to consciousness was not a gentle awakening, but a violent snapping into place. One moment, there was the all-consuming blackness of oblivion, the phantom memory of a shattered arm screaming in nerves that no longer existed. The next, he was choking on humid, fetid air, the rough hide of a slave tunic scraping against his skin, the cold, heavy weight of an iron manacle locked around his ankle.
His right ankle.
Adam gasped, his eyes flying open. He was standing. He was in a line. The same black mud sucked at his bare feet. The same weeping iron-bark trees clawed at the same bruised purple sky. The same chain, link by rusted link, connected him to the hulking, scarred man in front and the wiry, praying man behind.
No.
The thought was a single, frozen shard of denial in his mind. It was impossible. A cruel trick of a dying brain. He looked down, his heart hammering a frantic, panicked rhythm against his ribs. He flexed the fingers of his right hand. They were there. All of them. He brought his left hand up, touching his face. Both eyes. He was whole. Unharmed. The searing psychic agony, the horrifying sight of his unmade arm—it was all gone, erased like a bad dream.
But it hadn't been a dream. The memory was too vivid, too visceral. The coppery taste of fear, the wet tear of flesh, the crystalline shatter of the Terror's core, the hollow, seamless stump… it was branded onto his soul.
He had died. He was sure of it. The backlash had consumed him. Yet here he was, back at the beginning.
Regression.
The word surfaced from the depths of his ossuary knowledge, a concept from the old world, from pre-Spell fantasy stories the tall people sometimes whispered about. A do-over. A second chance. But this felt less like a gift and more like a condemnation. He had been thrust back into hell, and the only thing he'd brought with him was the memory of his own gruesome failure.
The line trudged forward. The big man grumbled. The wiry man prayed. The guards swaggered. It was a perfect, horrifying replica. The same script, the same players. And he knew how the third act ended: in a clearing of blood and piercing red silk, with a dying Terror that was far, far more than any "Web-Spinner."
The policeman's words echoed in his memory, now tinged with a new, dreadful significance. "The Spell usually tailors it to the Aspirant." Had it tailored this? A loop? A personal, inescapable hell designed for the boy who heard voices? Or was this something else, a glitch born from his chaotic Attributes? [Fated], a nexus of improbable events. [Mark of Chaos], reality made unstable. Had he broken the trial?
It didn't matter. The why was a luxury for the well-fed and the safe. For him, only the what mattered. And the what was that he was back here, and a Cursed Terror was waiting at the end of this chain.
A cold, sharp clarity cut through his rising panic. He could not go through that again. He could not face that thing. Not now. Not ever. The memory of its mind scraping against his was a psychic scar that throbbed with a pain deeper than any physical wound. It was a rank of creature he had never heard of, a power that felt like it belonged to a later, more advanced Nightmare, not a First Trial. It was wrong. An error. A death sentence.
His original plan—to use the distraction, free himself, and run—had ended with him as a one-armed lunatic being eaten by the dark. He needed a new plan. A better one.
He would run. Not alone this time. Alone, he was just one set of footprints, one scent for the hunters to follow. But with a group… a herd… there was safety in numbers. Confusion. A scattering of prey that might allow the slowest, the smartest, to slip away. He would convince them to run with him, away from the path, away from the Nest, deep into the unknown jungle. Anywhere was better than the clearing of the Terror.
The opportunity came, as he knew it would, at the narrow pass between the two moss-covered boulders. The guard with the club stood watch, his attention drifting. This time, Adam did not wait for the big man to act. He leaned forward, his voice a low, urgent whisper meant for the scarred back in front of him.
"They're taking us to be food for the Web-Spinners," Adam hissed, putting every ounce of conviction he could muster into the words. "The Nest is a slaughterhouse. I've heard the stories."
The big man stiffened but didn't turn. "Shut your mouth, boy."
"It's true," Adam pressed, his chain rattling softly. "But I know another way. I saw a path, back where the stream forks. It leads away from here. Into the deep woods. We could make a break for it. All of us."
This time, the big man half-turned, his eyes, small and deep-set in a face of battered flesh, scanning Adam with suspicion. "A path? You're lying. Trying to get us all whipped."
"The whip is better than the fangs," Adam countered, echoing the man's own future words back at him. "They're going to herd us, box us in. Then the Spinners will come. They don't capture. They pierce. They drain. I've seen it." He put the faintest tremor of witnessed horror into his voice, and it wasn't entirely faked.
The wiry man behind him had stopped his silent prayer and was listening intently. "He speaks truth," the man whispered, his voice cracking. "I feel it in my bones. A great evil waits for us on this path. A coldness."
The big man scowled, his gaze flicking towards the inattentive guard. The seeds of rebellion, which had previously been born of his own impulsive rage, were now being carefully planted by Adam. The calculus was different this time. It was no longer a desperate lunge for freedom, but a planned exodus.
"Now," Adam urged, his voice dropping even lower. "While he's distracted. We rush him, we get the keys, we break the chain, and we run. Not towards the Nest. Away. Deeper into the jungle. Together."
The big man's eyes met his, and for a moment, Adam saw the same brute intelligence he'd witnessed in the previous loop—the intelligence of a cornered animal that knows its only chance is to fight. He gave a single, sharp nod.
The rebellion unfolded with a strange, rehearsed quality for Adam. The big man roared, but this time it was a signal. He yanked the chain, pulling the nearest guard off balance. But instead of immediately attacking, he shouted, "The chain! Break the links! Now!"
The slaves, already primed by the whispered conversation, surged as one. They pulled in multiple directions, putting immense, chaotic strain on the rusted links. The guards, caught off guard by the coordinated effort, were momentarily confused. The one with the club was swarmed, not by one man, but by three, including the wiry man who moved with a frantic, bird-like speed.
Adam didn't wait. He dropped to his knees, his eyes fixed on the key ring. This time, his fingers were sure, his movements precise. He found the correct key on the second try. The lock on his manacle sprang open. He didn't stop there. He scrambled to the next slave in line, a gaunt woman with haunted eyes, and fumbled with her lock.
"Go!" he yelled at her as it clicked open. "Run that way!" He pointed away from the established path, into the thick, seemingly impenetrable wall of thorns and giant ferns. "Don't stop! Don't look back!"
Chaos became a controlled explosion. The big man, now armed with the club, smashed the manacle from his own ankle and then began doing the same for others, using the heavy iron as a crude hammer. The remaining guard was overwhelmed, his cries cut short. In less than a minute, the chain was a broken serpent on the ground, and a dozen freed slaves stood panting and wide-eyed in the clearing, their fate suddenly their own.
"The boy's right!" the big man bellowed, his voice cutting through the panic. "The Nest is death! We go into the deep woods! Stay together! Move!"
They ran. Adam led the way, or rather, he pushed his way to the front, using his slender frame to slip through gaps the bigger slaves had to force their way through. Thorns ripped at his tunic and skin, leaving thin, bleeding lines. The jungle was even more hostile off the path. The ground was a treacherous carpet of hidden roots and sucking mud pits. The twilight gloom deepened as the monstrous canopy blotted out more of the purple sky. Strange, bioluminescent fungi cast an eerie, pulsating light, and the air grew thick with the cloying scent of rotting blossoms.
They ran until their lungs burned, the sounds of the scuffle far behind them. Finally, the big man called a halt in a small, relatively clear area surrounded by the bulbous, glowing trunks of giant mushrooms. The group collapsed, gasping for air, their faces etched with a mixture of terror and wild hope.
"We did it," the wiry man panted, a hysterical laugh bubbling from his lips. "By the forgotten gods, we actually did it."
The big man clapped a heavy hand on Adam's shoulder, making him stagger. "The boy has more spine than I thought. You saved us from the butcher's block." His eyes, however, were already scanning the oppressive, closing darkness around them. "But this place… it feels no safer."
"It isn't," Adam said, his voice quiet. He was listening. The jungle was never silent, but the nature of the sounds had changed. The familiar chittering and dripping had been replaced by a deeper, more resonant hum, and a faint, almost melodic clicking that seemed to come from the very trees. The light from the fungi was slowly, imperceptibly, beginning to dim. Night was falling.
"We need to find shelter," Adam said. "A cave, a thicket, anything we can defend."
The big man, who had introduced himself as Kael, grunted in agreement. "You heard him. Spread out, but stay within sight. Look for anything we can use."
The group, emboldened by their initial success, began a desperate search. They found a small, shallow overhang of rock, barely large enough to fit half of them, nestled against a small, stagnant pond. It was pathetic, but it was the best they had. As the last vestiges of light faded from the sky, plunging the jungle into an absolute, profound blackness broken only by the sickly glow of the fungi, they huddled together in the cramped space. The air grew cold, a damp chill that seeped into the bones.
Kael had managed to keep his club. One of the other men had a sharpened stone. Adam had nothing but his wits and his terrifying memories.
"This was a mistake," a woman whispered in the dark, her voice trembling. "We should have stayed on the path. At least we knew what was there."
"Quiet," Kael growled. "The path led to death. This is a chance."
A chance for a different kind of death, Adam thought, but he kept it to himself. He sat with his back against the cold rock, his ears straining. The melodic clicking had grown louder, more rhythmic. It was a language, he realized with a fresh wave of dread. A language of the night.
The first attack came without warning.
A slave who had been standing watch at the edge of the pond screamed—a short, wet gurgle that was cut off abruptly. The group surged to their feet as one. In the faint fungal light, they saw him being dragged into the black water by something long and multi-jointed. The water churned violently for a moment, then stilled, leaving behind a spreading pool of murky red.
"To the rock! Back to back!" Kael roared, hefting his club.
They formed a tight circle, their backs to the stone overhang, facing out into the impenetrable darkness. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the now-deafening, pervasive clicking that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Then, the fungi around them brightened, as if in response to a command.
And they saw them.
They were not spiders. They were something else, something born of the deep, permanent night of this jungle. They were tall, slender, and insectoid, moving on four long, graceful legs that ended in wickedly sharp points. Their upper bodies were humanoid, with two additional, thinner arms that ended in scythe-like blades. Their heads were elongated, featureless ovals save for a single, vertical slit that glowed with the same sickly light as the fungi. They moved with an unnatural, silent grace, emerging from between the trees and from the dark water of the pond, their clicking forming a complex, horrifying chorus. There were a dozen of them.
"Ancestors protect us," the wiry man whimpered.
The creatures did not charge. They advanced slowly, deliberately, herding them, their blade-arms held ready. They were hunters, and this was a hunt.
Kael was the first to break. With a roar of defiance, he charged the nearest creature, his club swinging. The creature flowed around the blow like water, its scythe-arm flicking out. There was a sound like a butcher's cleaver hitting meat. Kael's head, still wearing a look of shock, toppled from his shoulders. His body stood for a moment, then crumpled.
Pandemonium.
The slaves screamed and tried to run, but the circle of creatures was complete. The night-walkers moved among them, their movements a blur of elegant butchery. Scythe-arms rose and fell, severing limbs, opening torsos, decapitating with chilling efficiency. The sharpened stone was useless, clattering harmlessly off a chitinous leg before its wielder was bisected at the waist. The air filled with the coppery stench of blood and the wet, tearing sounds of dismemberment.
Adam stood frozen, not with fear, but with a horrifying sense of déjà vu. It was happening again. The slaughter. The hopelessness. He had changed the script, and the Nightmare had simply rewritten the horror.
A creature turned its glowing slit-eye towards him. It took a step, then another, its clicking taking on a curious, inquisitive tone. It could sense it on him, he realized. The [Mark of Divinity]. The [Blessed by the Unknown]. He was, once again, the interesting one.
As the creature lunged, its scythe-arm aimed at his neck, Adam did the only thing he could. He dropped, rolling under the blow, coming up inside its guard. He had no weapon. He had only his Aspect, and the desperate, screaming memory of his previous death.
He looked up into that featureless, glowing face and he did not mimic a sound. He mimicked a feeling. He focused all his will, all his terror, all the chaotic energy of his soul, and he projected the psychic scream of the dying Cursed Terror. It was a soundless shriek of ancient, cursed pain and rage, a weapon of pure mental anguish.
The night-walker recoiled, its graceful form shuddering. The glow in its head-slit flickered wildly. It was a moment of vulnerability.
But Adam had no arm to shove into a crack. He had no spear. He had nothing.
Another scythe-arm, from a second creature he hadn't seen, swept in from the side. There was no pain, only a tremendous impact, and a sudden, shocking sense of lightness. He looked down. His left foot was gone, cleanly severed at the ankle. He fell sideways into the mud.
He tried to push himself up, but his hand landed on something wet and slippery. Another scythe descended. This one took his left hand at the wrist. He stared at the spurting stump, numb with disbelief.
The first creature recovered, its clicking now furious, enraged. It loomed over him, its bladed arm rising for the final strike. In a last, futile act of defiance, Adam spat a mouthful of blood and mud into its glowing face-slit.
The blade came down, but not to kill him. It was a punishment. A precise, surgical strike. The world on his left side exploded into white-hot agony, then into nothingness. The scythe-tip had pierced his left eye, plunging him into a world of half-darkness.
He lay in the mud, broken and bleeding, surrounded by the carnage of the other slaves. He was the last one alive again. A one-footed, one-handed, one-eyed wreck. The night-walkers clicked around him, their curiosity seemingly satisfied. They began to drag the corpses away, back into the dark water and the deeper shadows, leaving him alone to bleed out.
He watched them go through his one remaining eye, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. The blood loss was making him cold. The shock was a merciful blanket, smothering the pain.
He had tried to run. He had tried to change his fate. And the Nightmare had simply found a new, more inventive way to break him. It was a lesson in futility. There was no escape. There was only the script, and his role was to die in it, over and over again.
A weak, broken sound escaped his lips. It might have been a laugh. It might have been a sob.
"Thank you," he whispered to the uncaring, clicking darkness.
Then, as the last of his life seeped into the black mud, the world dissolved once more into absolute, seamless black.
The return was even more jarring than the first time. The shock of it, the sheer, soul-wrenching wrongness of being whole again, was a violence in itself. The humid air, the rough tunic, the chain, the mud. It was all there. Perfect. Unchanged.
Adam did not gasp. He did not tremble. He simply stood in the line, his newly restored hands hanging limp at his sides, his two eyes staring blankly at the scarred back of Kael, the man whose head he had seen roll. The memory of the night-walker's scythe taking his eye was as real as the ground beneath his feet.
He was back.
A deep, quiet horror settled in the place where his panic had been. This was not a trial. This was a trap. An eternal recurrence of suffering. And he was its prisoner.
He had no plan now. No clever strategy. The desperation he felt was a cold, dead thing in his chest. He had run, and he had been mutilated. He had fought, and he had been unmade. What was left?
The line trudged forward towards the narrow pass, towards the inevitable. The skittering of the Blood-Silk Spinners and the chittering command of the Cursed Terror awaited him. Or perhaps, this time, something new.
As the familiar scene began to unfold, a single, coherent thought finally formed in the frozen wasteland of his mind, a thought born of utter, absolute despair.
What is causing this?
The question was a tiny, guttering flame in an ocean of darkness. But it was all he had left. If he was to be broken again, if he was to be unmade and put back together only to be shattered once more, he would not spend his cycles in blind panic or futile resistance.
He would watch. He would listen. He would search for the crack in this perfect, hellish loop. He would find the flaw in the nightmare, the source of the regression.
And when he found it, he would break it.
Or he would die trying. Again.